Monday, February 09, 2009

what a day for a daydream

i used to daydream a lot. in school, at home, on mass transit, while showering, while doing pretty much anything. i would imagine what i would be like 10 years in the future. i would think about how i would die and what my funeral would be like. i would daydream about what other people might be doing behind closed doors. i would sit around and stare into space and go into this spaced out coma, oblivious to anything around me. i was physically on autopilot.

this is something i had assumed i had grown out of.

i went to a parent-teacher conference at dave's school last week. for the most part, my son is a genius. he gets all A's and B's and is in the advanced reading group. however, it was mentioned that he sometimes zones out and doesn't finish his classwork on time. i could certainly relate to that, but i still had to have a talk with dave about staying on task. it's good to have an active imagination, but there are times when it's not appropriate to crawl back comfortably in your mind and daydream. i gave this talk thinking that this is something he's going to grow out of. because hey, i did.

no. no, i didn't.

i'm here at work right now and realized after not hearing a damn word that my boss was saying to me that i was off in my own little world. come to think of it, i hear myself saying, "i'm sorry, what? i wasn't listening," a lot. just about every day, in fact. i'm a space cadet.

i stay focused for short bursts of time. if i'm at work, give me 20 minutes and i can finish almost anything with intense concentration and speed. but after 20 minutes, distraction sets in. i think that the only reason i've learned to work so fast is to make more time to daydream. as soon as i have any down time, i tune out at least 50% of what is going on around me and start imagining what is going on at home or conjuring up the beginning to my epic novel. i'll people watch and think, "boxers of briefs," or "i wonder what they're doing once their door closes?" what i imagine people doing after i check them in is probably much juicier than what actually goes on, but i can't help but picture the strangest scenarios.

i think i've worked at a hotel so long because it keeps my sick imagination working overdrive. inspiration for a novel, maybe?